Serbia Hands Republika Srpska Three AB-212 Helicopters
Serbia has donated three Agusta Bell AB-212 helicopters and one Jet Ranger 3 to Republika Srpska, growing the RS police fleet to ten aircraft, twice what Bosnia's armed forces have operational.
The Ministry of Interior of Serbia (MUP) has handed over three Agusta Bell AB-212 helicopters and one Bell 206B-3 Jet Ranger 3 to the Ministry of Interior of Republika Srpska, the specialized outlet Tango Six reports. The donation follows a Serbian government decision from last year, and for the first time publicly reveals the exact list of aircraft, their registration numbers and their age, going beyond the earlier, vaguer announcements about Serbian helicopters occasionally helping fight fires on Republika Srpska territory.
Once the Aviation Directorate of the Republika Srpska Ministry of Interior takes delivery of all four aircraft, its fleet will grow to ten helicopters, twice as many as the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina have operational, which is up to five.
The three AB-212s carry the registration marks YU-HCA, YU-HCD and YU-HCE, while the Bell 206B-3 is registered YU-HCZ. Two of the AB-212s were built in 1980 and the third a year earlier, making the aircraft 46 and 47 years old respectively. All were manufactured in Italy under license from the American company Bell. They are currently parked at the base of the Serbian MUP’s Helicopter Unit at Nikola Tesla Airport in Belgrade, awaiting handover. No exact date has been announced for when the Republika Srpska Aviation Directorate will physically collect them.
One of the helicopters now permanently transferring to Republika Srpska ownership has already flown in its skies before. It was previously deployed temporarily to Trebinje to fight forest fires, before returning to its home base in Belgrade.
Police Colonel Nenad Nedic, commander of the Serbian MUP’s Helicopter Unit, confirmed to Tango Six that this is a donation, not a sale.
As you know, a few years ago we launched a process of unifying our fleet, and replacing the Bells had been planned for the long term. The insurance and maintenance costs of these very old aircraft were too high, especially with our now much larger fleet of Airbus and Kamov helicopters.
Nedic adds that the decision to retire the Bells was reinforced by an emergency safety bulletin from the manufacturer, after several AB-212 accidents were recorded in Canada during 2024 due to sudden main rotor blade separation.
The manufacturer then issued what is known as an Alert Service Bulletin. The cause was a main rotor component that had not been made to proper technical specification.
Why did the request come from Banja Luka?
According to Nedic, the initiative for the donation came from Banja Luka, since Republika Srpska did not have its own medium helicopter for fighting forest fires last year.
Last year they had major problems with forest fires and did not have a medium helicopter that could assist them in those situations.
The Aviation Directorate of the Republika Srpska Ministry of Interior was formed in April 2025 through the merger of the former Republika Srpska Helicopter Service and the Republika Srpska MUP’s Helicopter Unit. It currently operates six helicopters: two Bell 206 Jet Rangers, three Russian-made Ansats and one Agusta Westland AW-119KX. After taking delivery of the donation from Belgrade, the fleet will number ten aircraft.
Retiring the old Bells from Serbia’s police fleet is not a sudden decision. Back in 2023, in a conversation with the unit’s commander, the President of Serbia described the Agusta Bell 212 as reliable but already dated compared to the newer and considerably faster Super Pumas.
Republika Srpska is also building its own fleet in parallel, independent of this donation. In mid-2025, its government tasked the Ministry of Interior with procuring a new multipurpose helicopter worth 14,625,000 convertible marks (BAM) including VAT, citing a high assessed risk of forest fires. The tender for two new helicopters was awarded in February 2026 to the Banja Luka company Finexport, a deal unrelated to the donation reported here.
As of publication, the Aviation Directorate of the Republika Srpska Ministry of Interior had not officially confirmed or commented on the donation of three AB-212 helicopters and one Jet Ranger. Nor is it known exactly when the aircraft will physically arrive in Bosnia and Herzegovina from Nikola Tesla Airport.
